Apple Hardware Prototypes: Four Radical New Concepts Revealed

Take yourself back to 2001. Digital audio players were nothing more than nichey gadgets bopping around the periphery of the consumer-electronics market. Then came the dynamo we now simply call “the classic,” and in a flash, both digital music and Apple’s repute as a hardware company achieved something close to metacultural transcendence.

The iPod gave its owners a fashion statement, a design icon, a mark of cultural literacy. It became a synonym for all portable music players and turned even the most clueless consumers into knowing technophiles. Even the iPod’s essential design—soft, white, and devoid of busy interface elements—made a powerful new statement about consumer-electronic aesthetics. The follow-up to the iPod would have to be equally magnificent. The world expected nothing less than another category-creating piece of lifestyle gear.

Apple didn’t let us down. Last year the company gave us the iPhone, and within a single news cycle, the definitions of smartphones, cell phones, audio players, video players, and even GUIs were rewritten. Rewritten, combined, pushed, pulled, exploded, congealed, and totally turned on end.

But what comes next? Apple now finds itself in the enviable position of trying to top its latest mass-market phenomenon. We don’t know what Steve Jobs is preparing to pull from his jeans pocket at the next Mac Expo, but we must assume his R&D teams are working on something very, very cool.

Just for fun, we challenged ourselves to conceive four new product directions for Apple Almighty. Our parameters were twofold: First, our imaginary products would have to be technically feasible (kinda, sorta), and, second, they would have to represent a trip into uncharted territory—either a new product category or consumer demographic. On the following pages you’ll find the fruits of our fanciful, fictitious, faux R&D. Our prototypes, we hope, will leave you thoroughly delighted.

Comments

indonica Hamdani

December 16, 2007 at 1:28am

how amazing. im getting one for suuuure
but i thinkit would be better if the shape was a little rectangle than a circle. It looks liek its easy to slip out of your hands and it looks lieka little powder compact....Im still getting one though haha

Anonymous Apple Fan

December 15, 2007 at 9:30pm

The Squidget is the absolute coolest thing I have ever seen. MacLife, I saw this in your magazine and went straight to the web. The 'spaz lightning' is the really innovative part. You should call it iPaging...

Anyway, the push songs is a good idea, but by using a mini-jack to mini-jack cable and the Line-in port on a computer, you could just record it in Audacity/GarageBand and not have to pay.

Anonymous

January 17, 2008 at 6:09pm

do you have to have a squidget to communicate with some1 who has a squidget???

Anonymous

December 12, 2007 at 10:25am

tha squid get is hell gay.

Michael

December 10, 2007 at 11:55pm

I would prefer to see the iCar implemented in a Jetta or Beatle.

Jetta has a cool design and Beatle has the awesome colors like the original Powerbooks and iMacs.

Also being a lower end vehicle would make them more affordable and thus marketable.

Anonymous

December 08, 2007 at 8:46pm

when does this come out?

Anonymous

December 07, 2007 at 2:55pm

the squidget looks soooo cool! i'd def. buy one. i'd also buy the ieye. but for the i car it would be not so cool they definitly should partner with bmw or Ferrari not audi!

Anonymous

December 06, 2007 at 2:33pm

the iCar needs more cupholders.
which bring me to my next point: must be waterproof and very easy to clean.

Personsen

December 04, 2007 at 5:05pm

I want one so bad, you guys should send the idea to apple and they might make it. A LOT of people will buy them, it looks so cool!
:(

Anonymous

December 03, 2007 at 1:19pm

You may have touched on something with the iEye. Apple should definitely look into the digital camera market; both still and video. An Apple camera would do for photography and videography what the iPod did for digital music and the iPhone is doing for smartphones/communications/PDAs.

inspired

November 28, 2007 at 9:21pm

The icar would become the most stolen car in America

Crtaylor

November 28, 2007 at 7:05am

I would really like to buy this camera if it ever comes out! It just looks plain awesome, and i love Apple!

Anonymous

November 28, 2007 at 6:51am

I am not sure if Apple would ever make mats with their logo to put your dirty shoes on.

alpha

November 28, 2007 at 7:13pm

I think as long as you were wearing their shoes (not the nike ones) they'd be ok.

http://redlightrunner.stores.yahoo.net/vinsixcolaps.html

kim krause

November 28, 2007 at 5:53am

doesn't anyone remember the first icar...it was a white smart with a built in ipod cradle.in fact smart was the first car manufacturer to offer an ipod kit over 3 years ago.i have one in my smart cabrio and even the newest ipods still fit in the cradle. sad actually that this little car was so ahead of its time yet still isn't totally accepted as a real car. maybe when oil hops over the 100 buck mark people might wake up.....

Anonymous

November 27, 2007 at 7:15pm

What's with the SONY Ads? Is this some Synergy thing... Mac/Life is about Apple, Apple is Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs sits on the Board for Disney, Disney Uses Blu-Ray, Blu-Ray is SONY, therefore sony advertises in Mac/Life.

Anonymous

December 21, 2007 at 2:14am

NO, apple and sony are completely different companies competing in both different and the same fields. you cannot compare apple and sony like that. What if steve jobs passed away, he would no longer be on the board of directors for disney and therefore the relationship you made with apple and sony would be cut off.

yes i believe that apple and sony have some relation but i believe the one you made is not the appropriate one.

JonPhillips

November 28, 2007 at 7:58am

Love the theory! (Seriously, I do...) Mind if I put this in the letters section of the magazine?

Omer Zach

November 27, 2007 at 5:27pm

I would sell my soul for an iCar.

:oetze

November 28, 2007 at 1:30pm

then you must call 666 66 666 6 and ask for S. Atan :)

Anonymous

November 27, 2007 at 4:11pm

There are some very creative ideas in this intentionally over-the-top feature... for instance, having a "distress" button on GPS-enabled phones that calls the police and sends your GPS coordinates. If only police departments had the ability to respond quickly and find you by GPS- my guess is that if officers want GPS, they have to buy it on their own.

Anonymous

December 05, 2007 at 4:56pm

Most large departments do have GPS. I am an Officer in a major city and we have a really good GPS system on our in-car Panasonic Toughbooks (I'm exclusively Apple at home). I think it would be a great tool to add to phones as we usually have to use triangulation methods through the carrier. It would make it a lot easier if we could just go to the GPS coordinates, especially if once activated, the phone was tracked until reset.

Michael Dunlop

November 27, 2007 at 2:19pm

NO! Apple needs to partner with BMW to make the iCar! after all they do have iDrive in there cars...

Crtaylor

November 28, 2007 at 7:10am

Audi should have the iCar, in my opinion. They are already very luxurious as it is. Therefore, it would be the ultimate marriage between a cool car and an Apple computer. The idea of putting this in a Beatle would just be too cheesy. :[

Anonymous

November 27, 2007 at 5:17pm

Yep, iDrive is just begging for an Apple-like interface

Anonymous

November 27, 2007 at 1:56pm

I can't wait to buy that Squidget one day - definitely the Burberry one.